1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an image processing apparatus, method, and program and a program storage medium, and more particularly to a nonlinear editing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In workplaces for creating content, such as television broadcasting stations, a single content is created by extracting some parts from video/audio materials (hereinafter, referred to as clips) produced by video cameras, as new clips, and combining them (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 11-95332).
FIG. 1 shows an example of a graphical User Interface (GUI) screen (hereinafter, referred to as edit screen) which is used for editing work and is displayed on a display of an editing apparatus. As can be seen from this figure, this edit screen 1 has a collections area 2, a monitor window 3, a Storyboard view 4, a Timeline view 5, and an effects views 6A to 6C.
The collections area 2 shows various bins and files being registered in the editing apparatus. When a user selects a desired bin or file, this collections area 2 shows a list of clips being contained in the bin or file. Then the user drags and drops a desired clip onto the monitor window 3 from the collections area 2, resulting in displaying the first image of the clip on the monitor window 3.
The user can play back, fast forward, or fast rewind the desired clip on the monitor window 3 by operating a group of buttons 7 placed at a lower part of the monitor window 3. The user can display a desired image of the clip on the monitor window 3 by dragging a scrub cursor 8 to the right or left, the scrub cursor 8 locating above the button group 7 and indicating the position of a current image in the entire clip.
The user searches for a desired frame by operating the button group 7 and the scrub cursor 8 while visually confirming the clip on the monitor window 3, and specifies a start point (hereinafter, referred to as IN-point) and an end point (hereinafter, referred to as OUT-point) of a desired video/audio part out of the clip by clicking on an IN button 9IN and an OUT button 9OUT when the IN-point frame and the OUT-point frame are displayed on the monitor window 3.
The user drags and drops thus specified desired video/audio part onto the Storyboard view 4, resulting in pasting it in the Storyboard view 4 as a new clip. The edit screen 1 arranges editing-targeted clips in the Storyboard view 4, which allows the user to easily imagine an edited video. The Storyboard view 4 shows the thumbnail and detailed information of the main image of each clip.
Then the user sequentially arranges clips on a video track 10V of the Timeline view 5 by dragging and dropping the clips from the Storyboard view 4. At this time, a band 12V corresponding to a length of each pasted clip appears on the video track 10V with a time scale 11 as an index. When audio is accompanying the pasted video, a band 12A having the same length appears on an audio track 10A at the same position indicated by the time scale 11.
Since the bands 12V and 12A exist on the video track 10V and the audio track 10A in the Timeline view 5, the video and sound of the clip corresponding to the bands 12V and 12A are displayed and output at times specified by the time scale 11. Therefore, such an edit list can be created that specifies a series of clips to be played back as an edited video/audio.
To apply a video effect to a switching part from a first clip to a second clip during creating the edit list, an icon (hereinafter, referred to as an effect icon) corresponding to a desired video effect out of executable video effects is dragged and dropped at a position corresponding to the switching part on a transition track 10T in the Timeline view 5, the executable video effects being displayed on the effect list view 6C of the effects views 6A to 6C. Thus the video effect corresponding to the effect icon pasted on the transition track 10T can be applied to the switching part from the first clip to the second clip in the edited video.